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I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

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Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#271

Post by malfist »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #266
malfist wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "an average amount of butter"? And why can you assume any of the other things?

Probably because most people likely to use this app aren't going to be using it for serious self-monitoring like someone with diabetes would. The reality is that most people will use an app like this for a while, fail at their attempt to lose weight or gain muscle, and lose interest. "Good enough" is the mantra of much of what is in the health/nutrition/fitness niche and it goes beyond anything AI-adjacent.

Good enough isn't close to cutting it for weight loss. A 250 calorie surplus per day will add half a pound per week. That being off by two tablespoons of oil.

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#272

Post by wnorris510 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #223
wnorris510 wrote: post #183

Founder of https://snapcalorie.com and ex-Google AI researcher here. The article actually gets our pricing wrong, it's completely free to use SnapCalorie, the $79.99 price is a donation to support our research and help us continue providing the best tools to everyone for free. We've published in top peer reviewed academic conferences and our algorithm (can't say the same for other apps) IS actually more accurate than…

This is the classic refrain product owners counter back with any time people present reasonable criticism of their AI app. User: "This (AI product) doesn't work!" Product Owner: "Well, humans are also bad at that." That's not the promise of these apps in general! The whole selling point of AI is that they're vastly better - if my eyeball estimate is "pretty inaccurate" and by your own admission the app is "pretty ina…

I got into this space because I saw many family members struggling with weight and nutrition. One of the leading causes of death in the United States is Diabetes, largely caused by poor nutrition and lack of exercise.

I've spent the last 10 years of my life researching why this is and how I can help. What I've heard from countless users is that it takes to long to track what they're eating and learn how they can improve.

I've never tried to claim that the selling point of AI is that it's "vastly better", I've just tried to build tools to help people. The voice note feature in our app accompanied by a kitchen scale is the most accurate thing you can do to track nutrition and it actually is much faster than what existed on the market before we launched.

The photo logging feature is more accurate than what most users did before we launched and is by far the fastest way you can track, but yes, it has it's limitations, and unlike our competitors I won't pretend it's perfect. If you're eating out at dinner, and the alternative would be you didn't log the meal, it's a great option.

At the end of the day accuracy actually is not the most important thing if you really care about helping people. Education is what matters. People need to learn which foods and ingredients are the problematic ones and why. Our app accomplishes that better than any solution that existed on the market before we launched.

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#273

Post by [deleted] »

kevlened wrote: post #233
JohnMakin wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the classic refrain product owners counter back with any time people present reasonable criticism of their AI app. User: "This (AI product) doesn't work!" Product Owner: "Well, humans are also bad at that." That's not the promise of these apps in general! The whole selling point of AI is that they're vastly better - if my eyeball estimate is "pretty inaccurate" and by your own admission the app is "pretty ina…

> The whole selling point of AI is that they're vastly better Not to nitpick, but "better" isn't on a single axis. Taking a photo is a better experience than searching and keying in every component, even if the accuracy is identical. AI tools don't even have to be "vastly" better. They could be, and often are, even worse on several axes, because they often trade quality for ease-of-use. You may assign a lower weight…

[deleted]

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#274

Post by wnorris510 »

kevlened wrote: post #233
JohnMakin wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the classic refrain product owners counter back with any time people present reasonable criticism of their AI app. User: "This (AI product) doesn't work!" Product Owner: "Well, humans are also bad at that." That's not the promise of these apps in general! The whole selling point of AI is that they're vastly better - if my eyeball estimate is "pretty inaccurate" and by your own admission the app is "pretty ina…

> The whole selling point of AI is that they're vastly better Not to nitpick, but "better" isn't on a single axis. Taking a photo is a better experience than searching and keying in every component, even if the accuracy is identical. AI tools don't even have to be "vastly" better. They could be, and often are, even worse on several axes, because they often trade quality for ease-of-use. You may assign a lower weight…

^^ 100%. Accuracy, speed, weight loss efficacy. Improving on each of this is a different solution.

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#275

Post by wnorris510 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #270
wnorris510 wrote: post #183

Founder of https://snapcalorie.com and ex-Google AI researcher here. The article actually gets our pricing wrong, it's completely free to use SnapCalorie, the $79.99 price is a donation to support our research and help us continue providing the best tools to everyone for free. We've published in top peer reviewed academic conferences and our algorithm (can't say the same for other apps) IS actually more accurate than…

What do you mean by this? > it's completely free to use SnapCalorie, the $79.99 price is a donation to support our research I just downloaded the app and I don't see any way to use the premium plan without paying 79.99 or 6.67/month. How do I choose not to donate? Or do you mean it's a required donation? And if that's true, in what sense is the article wrong, given that it says exactly that?

You have access to all of the same features without upgrading to premium. Just click the "x" on the paywall.

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#276

Post by mgraczyk »

wnorris510 wrote: post #275
mgraczyk wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by this? > it's completely free to use SnapCalorie, the $79.99 price is a donation to support our research I just downloaded the app and I don't see any way to use the premium plan without paying 79.99 or 6.67/month. How do I choose not to donate? Or do you mean it's a required donation? And if that's true, in what sense is the article wrong, given that it says exactly that?

You have access to all of the same features without upgrading to premium. Just click the "x" on the paywall.

The paywall says I get extra stuff from premium, including "unlimited photo, voice, and barcode logging", "unlimited AI nutritionist chat", "unlimited Personalized tips from your AI nutritionist".

It sounds like if I pay more, I get more access and can use the app more? So the original article was completely correct in characterizing the premium plan as $79.99

It says

> The app was free to download, no trial period necessary. There's a $79.99 per year premium plan, but it's intended to be a donation. The app caps free tier users at three photos per day, while all non-photo methods of logging are unlimited and free for everyone.

Which part of that is not correct?

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#277

Post by Kirby64 »

trod1234 wrote: post #240
dack wrote: post #91

Calorie tracking is also about educating yourself about how many calories certain things are, so you can make better decisions. Like, oil is insanely caloric and can accidentally add hundreds of calories, but it's nearly impossible to eat too many greens. Once you learn this, then the tracking is just to keep you honest - your brain knows what to do but it lies to you when it wants to bend the rules and those little…

In many respects calorie counting is an exercise in misinformation induced stupidity, from bad science. What people fail to realize is the calories on the label aren't the calories they are actually getting. Those on the label are the calories for the substance found by burning it in a lab. Calories absorbed are quite different, and depend on the method of preparation and personal factors. Different methods release d…

> What people fail to realize is the calories on the label aren't the calories they are actually getting. Those on the label are the calories for the substance found by burning it in a lab. Calories absorbed are quite different, and depend on the method of preparation and personal factors. Different methods release different percentage amounts to be taken up by your body in digestion.

Bomb calorimetry is not how calories on a package are determined today. Individual constituent macros are used to determine calorie content, accounting for fiber and thermic effects of digestion. Calorie metrics on foods are largely accurate, when used for caloric intake reasons.

> If you are getting ravenously hungry or nauseous , you are starving yourself, and this can damage your metabolism, and it won't result in long-term weight loss. You lose metabolically active tissue over fat which adapts to lower BMRs.

"Starvation mode" is a myth. If you are in too great of a deficit, sure, you will lose muscle in addition to fat, which can lower your metabolism... but it's not going to somehow damage you forever. If you weigh less, you burn fewer calories... just a fact of life.

> I've weighed my food out to get that daily calorie count. Here's a mindblower. I can eat 2700 calories of fats, and protein in a 60 30 ratio keeping carbs at 20g for the day, and I will on average lose 1-2 pounds a day, and this is done after the transition where water weight drop off has already plateaued (the weight loss isn't water weight, and its mostly not muscle mass either).

Nobody is losing 1-2 pounds of weight a DAY in any sustainable way. You might be able to pull that off for a little bit, but unless you're morbidly obese that just isn't happening for any reasonable period of time.

> Each pound is 3500 calories. My BMR is supposed to be 2200 for my weight and height/body composition. How am I in what amounts to an effective 9700 calorie deficit with no exercise, and no hunger?

BMR is not the same as TDEE. Most people's BMR is substantially lower than their actual caloric expenditure. It would not surprise me at all that you could lose weight at 2700cal/day if you have a BMR of 2200. You are likely in a caloric deficit.

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#278

Post by [deleted] »

wnorris510 wrote: post #272
JohnMakin wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the classic refrain product owners counter back with any time people present reasonable criticism of their AI app. User: "This (AI product) doesn't work!" Product Owner: "Well, humans are also bad at that." That's not the promise of these apps in general! The whole selling point of AI is that they're vastly better - if my eyeball estimate is "pretty inaccurate" and by your own admission the app is "pretty ina…

I got into this space because I saw many family members struggling with weight and nutrition. One of the leading causes of death in the United States is Diabetes, largely caused by poor nutrition and lack of exercise. I've spent the last 10 years of my life researching why this is and how I can help. What I've heard from countless users is that it takes to long to track what they're eating and learn how they can impr…

[deleted]

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#279

Post by surfmike »

edanm wrote: post #54
surfmike wrote: post #36

The founder of parrotpal (another AI calorie tracking app, supporting both text and photos) points out that using photos is one of the least accurate ways for tracking food: https://www.instagram.com/parrot.pal/reel/DAB9NtfM250/ Users also seem to like using photos less than text for food tracking: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBoSeQzM3bQ/ The author of this article seems to be against the concept of calorie counting…

> Personally, after using MyFitnessPal for a couple years, switching to ParrotPal made calorie counting way less time-I just need to give it a quick text (or voice) description and it does a surprisingly good job of estimating. I haven't used ParrtPal, what makes it easier than using MyFitnessPal?

- More freeform -- just type what you ate (and add as much detail as you want) and it will log it, nothing more to select or search from after - You can log several dishes or meals in the same sentence - You can use voice

With MFP, there was always searching, then selecting the best entry, then fiddling with portion size. It usually ends up taking many times longer for me.

Re: I used AI-powered calorie counting apps, and they were even worse than expected

#280

Post by surfmike »

schmichael wrote: post #46
tayo42 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems to be against the concept of calorie counting as a whole too What are peoples criticisms of calorie counting? Its the only thing that keeps my weight from creeping up. There are way to many calorie dense foods that can easily sneak in if im thoughtless. (I want my 20 year old life style back :( )

My unprofessional nutritional advice is: do what works for you! So if that’s calorie counting: great! No need to give it a second thought. But if you are interested in critiques, a fair summary might be: calorie counting is at best extremely imprecise, both on how we measure the calories in food and how we estimate energy expenditure by activities. A little googling should lead to numerous discussions. I really enjoy…

Sure, but not counting calories is even more imprecise. For many of us our built-in "calorimeters" are broken and we need to find other ways to limit intake. For example, restricting food by time or by type of food, or calorie counting.
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